Jamaican phone companies layoff total of 1,650 employees

Earlier in the newscast we heard from Stanley Marshall, the C.E.O. of Fortis, who did not mince words on the ongoing battles with the P.U.C. and G.O.B. According to Marshall, its subsidiary B.E.L. is facing tough financial times, with millions of dollars in losses, no plans for expansion and that it is pursuing litigation. And tonight there is word from another utility company, Digicel, the Irish mobile provider, which you may have heard from time to time, expressing an interest in entering the local market. Well those plans are now off the radar as today Digicel in Jamaica which is NOT connected to the DigiCell Service in Belize, announced that it will be laying off four hundred and fifty employees in twenty-three of its companies across the Caribbean. The number represents ten percent of the overall workforce for the company. According to the report from Jamaica, another telecommunication giant, LIME (formerly Cable and Wireless), announced recently that it will also lay off one thousand two hundred of its employees in the Caribbean.
Digicel now has approximately one point nine million subscribers among a Jamaican population of two point eight million; LIME has six hundred and sixty-six thousand.

Back home we got a reaction from Telemedia which characterized the layoffs as unfortunate, saying that such a situation has not become necessary in Belize and would be unlikely if the telecoms industry had the support of G.O.B. But Telemedia warns that the recent increase of five point five percent in business tax will have an adverse impact on the industry and can lead to similar measures. Nonetheless, the utility company says it is doing everything in its power to avoid going down the same path.